Reminder: UKIPO’s period of interruption due to coronavirus ends 29th July 2020

IP News

As reported last month, the UKIPO’s “general interruption” due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which applies to all deadlines relating to UK patents, supplementary protection certificates, trade marks, registered designs, and applications for these rights, as well as contentious proceedings before the Office, will end on 29 July 2020. Any deadline at the UKIPO falling due on or after 24 March 2020 will now fall on 30 July 2020. The UKIPO’s interruption does not apply to due dates set out in other international IP treaties, such as the Patent Convention Treaty or the European Patent Convention. The UKIPO has a significant backlog of cases which have been unable to progress as a result of deadlines being extended to 30 July 2020. In particular, no UK trade mark applications published for opposition purposes since late January have proceeded to registration, as the deadline for third parties to oppose them has continued to be shifted back due to the crisis. The UKIPO has announced that they aim to register all such delayed trade mark applications (which, in effect, are those published prior to 30 May 2020) before the end of August (provided oppositions or extensions of time are not filed before 30 July 2020 of course). They will complete registration in chronological order, with the oldest applications first and will be issuing registration certificates by email rather than post to ensure they are not delayed further. We will report these to clients in the usual manner. Please contact your usual Beck Greener team member if you have any questions.

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